Imagine a bright five year old boy who loved recording passages from books on his little tape recorder. When he became a teenager, he started writing lyrics and singing in a heavy metal band. By the age of twenty three, he was admitted at Robert Schumann Hochschule, a very prestigious Conservatory in Dusseldorf, Germany. They always said he would be a famous Opera singer but BC felt something different brewing inside his musical/poetic soul so he left the school and worked with Instrumentalist and Producer Wilfred Pechtheyden and they started a group TIDE.Their studio project produced “Autumn” and the cd was an acclaimed success. BC was at a crossroads in his life and wanted to learn more so he studied philosophy, geography and English literature culture. He graduated with honors from Cologne University and ended up teaching. Still something stirred inside that had to be let out. The unique combination of all BC’s gifts of music, poetry and intelligence developed into an amazing artist who’s voice, lyrics and style is honest, fresh, complex and absolutely BRILLIANT!!
[youtube 8pIdtP533Lw nolink]Where did your inspirations come from?
My inspirations come from either my own experience or from things I’ve read about or seen in movies or the news media. Often, fact is intermingled with fiction throughout my work. As an example, the name VOICE IN THE ATTIC on the one hand refers to me being a singer who owns a recording studio in the attic of an old house but also to a schizophrenic character in a novel who thinks he hears voices coming from the attic of a boarding house. Furthermore, it is a tongue-in-cheek allusion to ‘toys in the attic’. So there’s usually more than one layer of meaning in my music and writing.
As for the subjects of my lyrics I’d say the only rule is that I must be emotionally involved with what I’m writing since writing song lyrics isn’t the same as writing an article or an essay. In fact, the word “lyrics” is derived from Greek lyra for lyre, indicating that poetry and music have been inextricably intertwined for a long period of time. For me music and lyrics are two sides of the same coin. I could never write “gaga ooh la la” lyrics. It’s probably meant to be ironic and clever but it isn’t. It’s just plain stupid. One of my cardinal rules in song writing is that if you’ve got nothing to say you should rather shut up.
You have a classic rock voice and look like Jim Morrison as an example. Tell me how you got into music and about your cds and what you’re working on now?
Thanks, I take that as a compliment. Let me begin by answering the last part of your threefold question. I’m currently working on two new songs that will be released as singles at the beginning of next year. One is called Over, the other one Ablaze. Maybe Morrison is a good example to further illustrate my point on song writing and storytelling. One source of inspiration for me is classical mythology, as it was for Jim, and in Ablaze it mingles with personal observations and snippets of Alice in Wonderland. The lyrics of the first verse goes, “I’m tumbling down another rabbit hole / They say that pride comes before the fall / What did I win? Less than I lost / So let it spin and let us count the cost” before it turns into a Dionysian love chant in the chorus: “You and me / We’ll set the world on fire / You and me / Ablaze with desire”. The last verse finally invokes the god of wine and ecstasy when it urges the listener “to feast / On Dionysus’ heart”. I would call the song’s mood ‘conspiratorial’: it’s a romantic little love tale urging listeners to transgress the boundaries set by society. It’s about anti-compliance, and maybe also about anti-complacency: be radically true to yourself, follow your primal instincts and do what you feel is right.
Which brings me to the first part of your question, how did I get into music. I was born too late to be part of the movement toward social equality and liberation which was the 60s and early 70s that shaped the sound of bands like The Doors and was shaped by those artists’ bravery and experimentation in turn. Yet I was born in the mid-70s and my parents were still genuine hippies at the time. Us kids were encouraged to try out every musical instrument we wanted and though I never learned to read lead sheets, I discovered my environment acoustically. Later I did learn to read and write sheet music but found the technique distracting and abandoned it. Music comes through the ear. It isn’t always easy for me when working with musicians who are not as ‘instinctual’ and wish to strictly keep to their rule books.
About my recordings, one example to illustrate my point about 70s-style experimentation off the beaten path would be that for Shark Rider I tuned down my guitar strings to what I later learned was a modification of ‘Drop B’ tuning. I’d had no idea, I was simply following my ears until it sounded right and complemented the mood of the lyrics.
Did you write all your own lyrics? Tell me about a little about yourself and your life and hopes.
Yes, I write all my own lyrics and this aspect is very important to me. Although I’m not a political activist I have what is termed a ‘didactic intention’ in my art. You can only succeed in getting your message across if you believe that someone will be listening at the other end of the line and that sending musical and textual messages makes sense at all. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I believe that music can help make this world a better place. It is a universal language that can be understood by people all over the globe. And there are many pressing problems that need our intercultural awareness more than ever. Sometimes I fear we’re losing all that our parents fought for. We’re taking too much for granted: liberty, equality, civil rights, a functioning global ecology. The prevailing sense of cynicism in the West is no help and I’m trying to oppose it in my own way, as can be seen in the Golden video.
http://voiceintheattic.com/fr_uptheattic.cfm
By: Diana Olson – diolson05@yahoo.com
